


Missed Call

by greycoupon



Category: Sex Education (TV)
Genre: F/M, Maeve has some things to say, Post S2 E8, fixing what Isaac broke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greycoupon/pseuds/greycoupon
Summary: Because Otis was Otis, he showed up at her door bright and early Saturday morning.
Relationships: Otis Milburn/Maeve Wiley
Comments: 21
Kudos: 202





	1. Let Otis Be Otis

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at fixing things for Otis and Maeve post season 2. There will be at least one more part to this. Thanks to postmodernpromartheus for the beta.

It was Saturday. Normal people slept in on Saturday. Maeve had no problem getting up early when she had to, but was always suspicious of those who woke at the crack of dawn to vacuum or go grocery shopping.

She hadn’t intended on getting up at all this morning. Isaac had done his best to distract her last night, but in the end she still had to come to a quiet and empty house and she could hardly sleep. She kept waking up after twisted nightmares of Elsie burning herself, the little girl’s body writhing in agony as she fell off the the wobbly chair she had stood on to reach the stove. The scalding pan of beans making a horrible sound as it hit the floor after her. This was a new one, but the dream she’d had since she was a child where she found her mother on the couch, dead of an overdose, also made an appearance. She woke up screaming.

She knew she had done the right thing. She knew from personal experience how irresponsible her mum was when she was using. When she wasn’t passed out, which was most of the time, she would disappear for days leaving Sean and her to fend for themselves.

Elsie deserved better than that life. Which didn’t make the guilt and pain any less.

So she was lying in her bed, not sleeping, but not totally awake when she heard a knock on the front door. She looked over at the clock which read 7:00am. If it was the bible thumpers, she was telling them she worshipped Satan. 

She grudgingly dragged herself out of bed and answered the door. It was Otis.

Of course.

“What do you want?” she asked, feeling kind of irritated. Couldn’t everyone leave her to be depressed and miserable in peace?

Otis fidgeted a bit, shoving his hands in his pockets only to pull them back out. “I know I should wait for you to call me after what I said in the voicemail message but…”, his voice trailed off and he took a long glance at his shoes before lifting his head to look her in the eye. “I just had to know what you think.”

She let him inside before putting on the kettle to make tea. Her brain felt muddled and kind of fuzzy. Maybe the caffeine would help. Otis sat down on the couch while she retrieved her phone from her room. No voicemail.

“What are you talking about? I don’t have a message from you,” she said as she walked back to where he was perched on the couch. The anxiety clearly written on Otis’s face shifted into confusion.

“I left you a voicemail yesterday when you were doing the final. I saw you on television. You didn’t get it? I told Isaac to tell you to check your messages when I came by last night.”

What the hell? “What are you talking about?”

Otis exhaled deeply. “I called and left you a voicemail when you were doing the NSQC final. When you didn’t call me back I came by to see you. I knocked, but there was no answer. Isaac...that’s his name, right? The guy you brought to my party? He came out of his caravan and said you weren’t home and he didn’t know when you would be back. So I asked him to tell you I stopped by and to check your voicemail.”

Otis paused and looked uncomfortable. “I guess he didn’t? Maybe he just forgot?”

Unlikely. She didn’t think Isaac had ever forgotten anything in his whole life. More to the point, her head been all over the place last night. She had pulled out her phone to pay for groceries only to realize she hadn't brought it with her. She left it in Isaac’s caravan. And the voicemail had disappeared..

The arsewhole hadn’t forgotten.

“Don’t move,” she told Otis before turning to walk out the front door. She was going to have a word with Isaac.


	2. I am the captain of my soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isaac faces the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to @postmodernpromartheus for the beta. See end for more notes.

Maeve pounded on the trailer door, none too gently. If the asshole was sleeping, too bad.

Joe answered the door, keys in hand. “Morning, Bodyslammer,” he said, sounding as cheerful as one could be at this hour.

“I’m just headed to work,” he added when Maeve didn’t say anything. She had noticed Isaac sitting in front of his easel painting.

“Good morning, Isaac,” she said.

Isaac ignored her for a moment before dropping the paint brush and turning around to face her.

Joe, realizing there was drama and he was going to be late, shrugged and walked out the door. “Lock up on your way out!” he added just before shutting the door.

“You’re up early,” Maeve said,

Issac smiled sardonically, “Don’t I look like a morning person?”  
“Not really.”

“Well, Joe works a 12 hour shift on Saturdays so he has to get me up before he goes. Besides…”

He noticed her glaring at him. “What?”

Maeve wasn’t going to beat around the bush with him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me Otis came to see me last night?”

Isaac faltered briefly. “I forgot, honestly. You were so upset about your mum and when you got back from the store all I thought about was cheering you up.”

Uh huh.

Maeve pulled out her phone and put it in speaker mode. She pressed number 1 to call her voicemail.

She held out the phone toward Isaac so they could both easily hear the electronic voice say “you have no messages in your mailbox.”

“What happened to my voicemail, Issac? What did you do? Otis told me he left me a message.”

“Maeve, I’m not sure what…” Isaac was a terrible liar. Really, really bad. Which made the fact that no one ever questioned him even more galling.

She just glared at him. After a tense moment of silence, he shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

“Okay, I deleted your voicemail. But I just did it to save you from more hurt.”

Maeve wanted to punch him. “You had no right! It is none of your business. I left my phone here by accident and didn’t think twice about it when I realized because I trusted you.” emphasis on the past tense there.

“Look, that kid, Otis, is not like us. I saw how he treated you. He humiliated you in front of all your friends.”

“He was really drunk,” she countered.

“You and I both know being drunk or high isn’t an excuse. It doesn’t make you say things you don’t mean. It just takes away your filter that keeps you from saying and doing what you really think.”  
Maeve stalked over to the couch because it was something to do besides scream. “Otis is a really sweet guy. I promise he didn’t mean that stuff. I told you, he has family problems and hell, I don’t think he had ever been drunk before.”

“Otis is a spoiled rich kid who thinks only his feelings matter.”

“He isn’t rich!”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “I saw his house. He’s rich enough. He will never know what it is like to be like us. He may have family problems, but he’s never had to worry about being completely abandoned, left to fend for himself. He’s never had to worry that there wasn’t any food in the house or money to buy it. “

He wasn’t wrong about that part, but that didn’t excuse this.

“You don’t know Otis. I do. I care about him a lot. I think he may care about me, too. We just seem to have the worst timing ever. But if I could accept and move past what happened at the party, so should you.”

Isaac stared at her for a long time.

Maeve wasn’t done. “You had no right to interfere like that. You don’t know Otis or anything about our relationship.”

Isaac didn’t look away from her face. “I thought I was protecting you.”

Maeve wanted to scream. “I don’t need your protection from the people in my life. They are there, good and bad. I have to be able to take the lumps so I can appreciate the sweet parts.”

“But your mum....”

Oh, come on. “That wasn’t the same thing. You just told me what you suspected and helped me confirm it. You didn’t go over my head to do it. Everything was my call the way it should be. _I am the master of my own fate._ ”

Isaac gave a small laugh. “Never was much for poetry, but I did like the movie.”

Maeve didn’t smile a bit. “Do you see how wrong what you did was? I kind of understand where you are coming from, but that doesn’t make me any less mad at you. You had no right.”

Isaac really had thought he was helping in a twisted way. He wasn’t a bad guy. He, like Maeve, had just had a lifetime of abandonment and mistreatment which had blurred the lines too much. He didn’t have many close friends so he felt the need to protect the ones he did have with an almost religious zeal. But he had screwed up.

“I’m sorry, Maeve. You’re right. I was way out of line. I don’t know Otis, but it just seemed like someone else treating you badly. After I heard what he said in the message, I just reacted.”

Maeve frowned, “What did the message say, exactly?”

Isaac was briefly surprised and then he wasn’t. “You don’t know?”

“If I knew would I be asking you?”. She felt like grinding her teeth in frustration,

“You really should talk to Otis.”

Fine, this conversation was going nowhere and only pissing her off more. 

“Later asshole,” she told Isaac and walked out the door, though she did stop to lock it on the way out.

She started out taking a few slow steps down the ramp before the surge of adrenaline hit. Then she ran back to her caravan and threw open the door all in what felt like one breath. She stomped in to find Otis still on the couch, reading a book.

She shoved him sideways to make room before sitting next to him.

“Mystery solved. Asswipe dealt with. So...what exactly did the voicemail you left me say?” she asked. After a beat, she added, “tell me the truth. You owe me that.”

This was very true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maeve quotes Invictus By William Ernest Henley. I'm honestly struggling. I was going to end it here but I sense that wouldn't be a satisfying resolution for the reader. What do you think? Do you need to see the conversation? I feel like stronger writers than I have already tackled this.


End file.
